YEP says: Leeds school closure move doesn’t add up

Secondary school years are some of the most intense and pressured years of a young person’s life.

You would think it would have to take a dire emergency for anyone to want to disrupt that learning and upset that envirionment.

Yet it seems Leeds City Council wants to shut down a “good” secondary school, which has left both the headteacher and parents shocked, angry and in limbo.

Of course the situation is complex. The school in question hoped to join a Leeds-based academies trust, believing this would be the key to making it outstanding. Whatever your beliefs on academy trusts this is not a bad ambition for any school to have.

Instead, after months of to-ing and fro-ing the council has objected to that application, and put forward a plan to shut the school, sell the land and build a new school in Wetherby.

Wetherby may only be three miles away, but they are certainly roads that need no extra traffic. Wetherby may well welcome a new, bigger, better equipped school - but where on earth does the decision to shut Boston Spa School come from. North Leeds does not exactly have a surplis of school places.

Bricks and mortar do not make good schools, great teachers and leadership does. The council has its work cut out to convince parents that this move will be in the interests of Boston Spa pupils and their families.